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Topic: Regional sayings (Read 64613 times)

I'm from the US south. I worked in Australia for a short time. A common phrase to say to a coworker when leaving the office for the day is "Have a good one." as in have a good evening. I later found out I was confusing lots of my Australian co- workers because they had no idea what the "one" was and why I insisted it be good.

What? As an Australian, how is that confusing? Its commonly said here IME. Where abouts were you?

When we can hear a baby has woken up from a nap or their night's sleep, we say "Another country heard from!" I always heard my grandmother say it, and DH heard his gmother say it too. For older people who are up from sleeping it's "Trouble's coming!" or "It's alive!"

When we're having someone over I say we're "Having company."

I got confused once when my Midwestern friend said she was going to be "out of pocket" as I always took it to mean "I'm paying for something out of my own pocket" (as opposed to using company funds or something like that) but she meant it as "I'm going out of town." Now I've kinda picked up on it.

I'm in MD and I use out of pocket quite a bit. Typically it is used when someone is going to be out of reach for a while. So if I'm hiking, I'll say that I'll be "out of pocket" for most of the day since I'll be in the middle of nowhere with no/intermittent cell signal. Or if I need to focus on my job and will not be checking emails or answering non-work phone calls, I'll be "out of pocket" for so many days until I get caught up.

Ah, okay, so it's not just a Midwestern thing then! I'd never heard anyone else in Maryland use the phrase but maybe that's just cause I didn't know the right people! LOL!

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I used to hear "out of pocket" often when I had a corporate job (in NYC). It meant out of reach: "I have to visit the client on-site and will be out of pocket all day."

I work in... well sorta medical sorta retail now. I often say "have a good one!" As I bid my patients/customers goodbye. I've been saying it for years without comment, until 2 days ago some guy turned back around, walked back to me and started in about have a good what, and why only one and where did this meaningless phrase come from. It was very uncomfortable. I wanted to scream "its a generic pleasantry you buffoon!"

Harking back to the driving references do young men in other areas do "bog laps". I'm not sure if this is just a West Australian thing or the whole of Australia. Basically it means guys in cars (sometimes hotted up, sometimes not) do loops on a certain stretch of road, just circling around, up and down, usually only going a distance of a few hundred metres (yards). Often this is in front of clubs or cafes and when you see them you say "Look at those idiots doing bog laps".

Is bog short for bogan?

Is there a common term elsewhere for being able to see the top of someone's backside over their trousers? In the UK we call it builder's bum but I heard someone on a podcast call it a plumber's crack, is that the common term or a one off?

Snooks I was all set to say no bog isn't short for bogan, but I don't know where it comes from. However, DH tells me that bog is short for bogan. I've only ever heard it used in reference to doing laps though.

I'm from the US south. I worked in Australia for a short time. A common phrase to say to a coworker when leaving the office for the day is "Have a good one." as in have a good evening. I later found out I was confusing lots of my Australian co- workers because they had no idea what the "one" was and why I insisted it be good.

What? As an Australian, how is that confusing? Its commonly said here IME. Where abouts were you?

Perth, but maybe it was because there were lots of S. African's and Scottish that I was working with.

I used to hear "out of pocket" often when I had a corporate job (in NYC). It meant out of reach: "I have to visit the client on-site and will be out of pocket all day."

I work in... well sorta medical sorta retail now. I often say "have a good one!" As I bid my patients/customers goodbye. I've been saying it for years without comment, until 2 days ago some guy turned back around, walked back to me and started in about have a good what, and why only one and where did this meaningless phrase come from. It was very uncomfortable. I wanted to scream "its a generic pleasantry you buffoon!"

Your encounter must have been with my pedantic and very-annoying friend -- he's a great "precisian" about all aspects of language, and a particular hobby of his, is "meaningless-phrase-skewering". Re this guy, "get a life" is a "meaningless phrase" which often comes to mind.

Harking back to the driving references do young men in other areas do "bog laps". I'm not sure if this is just a West Australian thing or the whole of Australia. Basically it means guys in cars (sometimes hotted up, sometimes not) do loops on a certain stretch of road, just circling around, up and down, usually only going a distance of a few hundred metres (yards). Often this is in front of clubs or cafes and when you see them you say "Look at those idiots doing bog laps".

Is bog short for bogan?

Is there a common term elsewhere for being able to see the top of someone's backside over their trousers? In the UK we call it builder's bum but I heard someone on a podcast call it a plumber's crack, is that the common term or a one off?

Snooks I was all set to say no bog isn't short for bogan, but I don't know where it comes from. However, DH tells me that bog is short for bogan. I've only ever heard it used in reference to doing laps though.

This is only a guess but bogging your car means filling in all the rust holes and dings with some kind of material like poylfiller which gets painted over, so it is still as inherently dangerous as it was before but just looks a little bit better.

Harking back to the driving references do young men in other areas do "bog laps". I'm not sure if this is just a West Australian thing or the whole of Australia. Basically it means guys in cars (sometimes hotted up, sometimes not) do loops on a certain stretch of road, just circling around, up and down, usually only going a distance of a few hundred metres (yards). Often this is in front of clubs or cafes and when you see them you say "Look at those idiots doing bog laps".

Is bog short for bogan?

Is there a common term elsewhere for being able to see the top of someone's backside over their trousers? In the UK we call it builder's bum but I heard someone on a podcast call it a plumber's crack, is that the common term or a one off?

Harking back to the driving references do young men in other areas do "bog laps". I'm not sure if this is just a West Australian thing or the whole of Australia. Basically it means guys in cars (sometimes hotted up, sometimes not) do loops on a certain stretch of road, just circling around, up and down, usually only going a distance of a few hundred metres (yards). Often this is in front of clubs or cafes and when you see them you say "Look at those idiots doing bog laps".

Is bog short for bogan?

Is there a common term elsewhere for being able to see the top of someone's backside over their trousers? In the UK we call it builder's bum but I heard someone on a podcast call it a plumber's crack, is that the common term or a one off?

One more on the bag/sack issue. Does anyone else use the term "poke" ? I think it's a southern thing but once I learned that poke meant bag or sack, the phrase "buying a pig in a poke" suddenly made sense!

One more on the bag/sack issue. Does anyone else use the term "poke" ? I think it's a southern thing but once I learned that poke meant bag or sack, the phrase "buying a pig in a poke" suddenly made sense!

I have definitely heard it and identify it more with the south, though I don't know that it is used a lot currently.

I'm from the US south. I worked in Australia for a short time. A common phrase to say to a coworker when leaving the office for the day is "Have a good one." as in have a good evening. I later found out I was confusing lots of my Australian co- workers because they had no idea what the "one" was and why I insisted it be good.

What? As an Australian, how is that confusing? Its commonly said here IME. Where abouts were you?

Perth, but maybe it was because there were lots of S. African's and Scottish that I was working with.

It's definitely a known and used phrase in Perth. Though that is no guarantee that everyone in Perth knows it. I would be surprised to find a whole workplace where no-one knows it.

Growing up in the Boston area I called that four-wheeled thing you push around at the grocery store a carriage. Now it's a cart. Same for those two-wheeled things that people who walk to the store carry their groceries home in. Formerly "two-wheeled carriage," now cart. A friend calls them "blue-haired lady carts," because she associates them with older women.

To me "out of pocket" refers to money. As in, stuff you pay for out of whatever money (cash or plastic) you're carrying as opposed to what is already covered (e.g., for a vacation you pay in advance for your hotel and rental car, but you still have to pay out of pocket for meals, souvenirs, park admissions, etc.). I've never heard it used to mean out of the area or not reachable.

My mom says "mind your own beeswax" as a slangy alternative to "mind your own business." She's Boston-born and raised.

Growing up in the Boston area I called that four-wheeled thing you push around at the grocery store a carriage. Now it's a cart. Same for those two-wheeled things that people who walk to the store carry their groceries home in. Formerly "two-wheeled carriage," now cart. A friend calls them "blue-haired lady carts," because she associates them with older women.

To me "out of pocket" refers to money. As in, stuff you pay for out of whatever money (cash or plastic) you're carrying as opposed to what is already covered (e.g., for a vacation you pay in advance for your hotel and rental car, but you still have to pay out of pocket for meals, souvenirs, park admissions, etc.). I've never heard it used to mean out of the area or not reachable.

My mom says "mind your own beeswax" as a slangy alternative to "mind your own business." She's Boston-born and raised.

Ditto for "out of pocket". I've only ever heard it to mean paying money that wasn't covered elsewhere.

My family also says that, as have I on occasion; we're from northwestern PA.